Printed in Great Britain

TO MY BROTHER

Hard-handed Brother, stunted and warped with toil,
Thy stolid face, thy dull, unseeing eyes,

Thy lips too stern and shut for moans or sighs,

Thy very flesh defiled with daily moil

Fill me with shame and pity. Son of the soil,

Helpless and hopeless, spent in the scuffle of life,Thou, with thy little ones and the pale, patient wife, What's left to thee but the submissive smile

That glows, like the last flash of dying day,

Kindly but coldly, rare and yet ever rarer?
"Let be !" thou criest. "Say that I pinch to pay
The weekly rent, the cupboard growing barer,
My belly emptier-why, what's the odds?"
And thus thy great calm soul is one with God's.